Gitmo is the common nickname for Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a 45-square-mile U.S. military installation on the southeastern coast of Cuba that has operated under a 1903 lease and, since January 2002, housed a detention facility built to hold people captured in post-9/11 military operations. About 780 people have been detained there over the years. As of early 2026, 15 war-on-terror detainees remain, the trial of the accused 9/11 plotters has still not produced a verdict, and a 2025 presidential directive has expanded the base’s role to include migrant detention.1Commander, Navy Installations Command. About – NS Guantanamo Bay
A U.S. Base on Cuban Soil
The United States took control of Guantanamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and secured a formal lease in February 1903. That agreement gave the U.S. the right to “exercise complete jurisdiction and control” over the territory while acknowledging Cuba’s “ultimate sovereignty.”2Yale Law School Avalon Project. Agreement Between the United States and Cuba for the Lease of Lands for Coaling and Naval Stations A 1934 treaty made the lease permanent, terminable only by mutual agreement or U.S. abandonment, and set annual rent at $4,085.3U.S. Army. Contracting Office Provides Capitalist Support in Cuba The U.S. Treasury still sends that check every year. Cuba has refused to cash it since Fidel Castro’s revolution, treating the American presence as illegitimate.
That split status, American jurisdiction on Cuban sovereign territory, is not a historical curiosity. It is the reason Guantanamo became a detention site.
How the Detention Facility Started
The detention mission began with a military order President George W. Bush signed on November 13, 2001. The order authorized the indefinite detention of non-citizens the president determined were linked to al-Qaeda, had engaged in terrorism, or had harbored terrorists, and gave the Secretary of Defense authority to hold them wherever he chose, without charges.4Federation of American Scientists. Military Order of November 13, 2001 – Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism
The first detainees arrived in January 2002 and were held in open-air cages at a hastily built facility called Camp X-Ray. By April, they had been moved to a more permanent compound called Camp Delta. The government picked Guantanamo for a specific legal reason. Because the base sits on Cuban sovereign territory, officials argued that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction there and that constitutional protections did not reach the detainees. They labeled the men “enemy combatants,” a classification meant to place them outside both the U.S. criminal justice system and the Geneva Conventions’ protections for prisoners of war.
The population grew fast. By June 2003, Guantanamo held 684 detainees at its peak, most of them captured in Afghanistan, some transferred from CIA sites elsewhere, the vast majority held without charges.
The Supreme Court Cases That Changed the Rules
The theory that Guantanamo existed in a legal black hole did not survive judicial review. Three Supreme Court decisions, handed down over four years, progressively expanded detainees’ rights and cut back on executive power.
Rasul v. Bush (2004)
Detainees filed habeas corpus petitions, the centuries-old mechanism for challenging unlawful imprisonment. The government argued that Cuban sovereignty stripped federal courts of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that U.S. courts could hear the challenges because the United States exercised “plenary and exclusive jurisdiction” over the base.5Justia. Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004) The ruling opened the courthouse door but left open what procedural rights detainees actually had.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)
Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni national who had served as Osama bin Laden’s driver, challenged the military commission convened to try him. The Court ruled that the commissions established by presidential order alone were invalid because they violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Among the problems the Court identified: the commissions could convict defendants on evidence the accused would never see.6Justia. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006)7U.S. Department of State. Public Law 109-366 – Military Commissions Act of 20068Office of Military Commissions. Military Commissions Act of 2009
Boumediene v. Bush (2008)
The 2006 Act had tried to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over detainee habeas petitions. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus and that the review procedures Congress had substituted were not adequate. The jurisdiction-stripping provision was therefore an unconstitutional suspension of the writ.9Justia. Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008) The ruling established that constitutional protections follow the flag to Guantanamo, a direct repudiation of the government’s original rationale for choosing the location.
Interrogation, Hunger Strikes, and Torture Allegations
Alongside the legal fights, interrogation practices at Guantanamo drew worldwide condemnation. A program of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” involved methods that critics, international bodies, and eventually the U.S. Senate characterized as torture. Documented methods included waterboarding, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation severe enough to cause hallucinations, exposure to extreme temperatures, and sexual humiliation. Psychological coercion included threats against detainees’ family members.
Hunger strikes became a recurring form of protest. The military force-fed strikers through nasal tubes, a practice the UN Human Rights Commission characterized as a form of torture. The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo prohibits artificially feeding a prisoner who is capable of making a rational decision to refuse food, and more than 250 doctors from multiple countries publicly condemned the practice. The Senate Armed Services Committee investigated the origins of the interrogation program and concluded that senior officials bore responsibility for the abusive treatment.
The 9/11 Trial and the Military Commissions
The military commission system has produced remarkably few results despite operating for more than two decades. Only nine convictions have been obtained, and just two of those men remain imprisoned. Several convictions were overturned on appeal.
The highest-profile case is the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants for planning the September 11 attacks. The five face charges that include nearly 3,000 individual counts of murder, one for each person killed, and the death penalty if convicted. Pretrial proceedings began at the Expeditionary Legal Complex at Guantanamo Bay in May 2012. As of 2026, the case has still not reached trial.
In 2009, the Obama administration tried to move the case to a federal civilian court in New York, but Congress blocked the transfer through legislation signed in 2011. Back in the commission system, pretrial litigation has consumed years of hearings, much of it over the admissibility of evidence obtained through interrogation and over the classification of government secrets.
In 2024, the defendants reached a plea agreement under which they would admit guilt in exchange for life sentences rather than execution. Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the deals, asserting his authority as the superior convening authority. A military judge initially upheld the agreements, but in July 2025 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw them out in a 2-1 ruling, finding that Austin retained the power to rescind and that the defendants had not yet begun performing under the agreements. The case has returned to pretrial proceedings, and prosecutors must decide whether to pursue the death penalty.
Who Is Still There, and What It Costs
Of the roughly 780 people detained at Guantanamo since 2002, the vast majority have been released or transferred to other countries without ever being charged. As of early 2026, 15 war-on-terror detainees remain.1Commander, Navy Installations Command. About – NS Guantanamo Bay Some face military commission proceedings; others are held in indefinite law-of-war detention with no charges and no scheduled trial. Detainees not facing charges have their cases evaluated periodically by the interagency Periodic Review Board, which decides whether continued detention is still necessary to protect against a “continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”10Periodic Review Secretariat. About the PRB
Running the facility is expensive. Estimates of the annual operating budget have ranged from $540 million to more than $660 million when adjusted for inflation, putting the per-detainee cost at roughly $44 million per year. Housing an inmate in a federal supermax prison costs a small fraction of that. The gap reflects what it takes to operate a remote detention and legal complex, including courtrooms, guard forces, legal staff, medical facilities, and logistics, on an isolated base that generates its own power and water.
The Fight Over Closing Guantanamo
Whether to close the detention facility has been one of the longest-running political fights of the post-9/11 era. On his second day in office, President Obama signed Executive Order 13492, directing that the detention facilities be closed within one year and requiring a review of every detainee’s case.11The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 13492 – Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Facility The deadline passed. Congress repeatedly blocked closure by prohibiting the transfer of detainees to facilities on U.S. soil and restricting transfers abroad, and the facility stayed open through both Obama terms.
President Trump formally reversed course in January 2018 with Executive Order 13823, which revoked the closure directive, declared that detention operations would continue, and authorized the transfer of additional detainees when “lawful and necessary to protect the Nation.”12The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 13823 – Protecting America Through Lawful Detention of Terrorists The Biden administration transferred some detainees out but did not close the facility.
Migrant Detention Since 2025
In January 2025, President Trump directed a significant expansion of the base’s mission beyond terrorism-related detention. A presidential memorandum ordered the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay “to full capacity” to hold what the order described as “high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”13The White House. Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity Reports indicated that a section of the base was being prepared to hold up to 30,000 migrants.
The directive drew immediate legal challenges. In February 2025, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other organizations filed suit on behalf of individuals detained at the base and their family members, arguing that holding immigrants at Guantanamo without access to counsel or the ability to communicate with the outside world violates due process. The suit invoked the same constitutional arguments that shaped the war-on-terror cases, and pointed specifically to Boumediene’s holding that the Constitution reaches Guantanamo regardless of its location on Cuban soil.